Incredibly Cool Website, if you like to listen to your hitherfore unknown favorite music, that is

Sign up, type an artist you like, and it composes a list of songs you like. I typed The Roches and heard a song by Maggie, my favorite Roche, and Viola!

The Peace Mobile

The peace mobile, an old volvo covered with peace sign stickers was being driven by me while my truck held down the fort of acting like a truck in front of the trailer which, i think, the troll thinks I live in. Anyway, I parked the Peace Mobile and on the back of a liquor store receipt - no kidding- I got a very unpeaceful note. Move your F*%$#*g Car C$#*T! (I assume your a woman because of the volvo.) He/She/It/They even wrote the parentheses. I am not sure if he assumed it was driven by a woman because of the peace signs on Eric's car, (not a woman by the way) or that it is a volvo that is spelled something similar to vulva. I do not know.

My truck also got hit. But a nice man named John claimed responsibility for it.

Summer in the Hight Sierras

Jon is up at the cabin fixing broken windows, leaking pipes, etc. Some people took my last post literally, as I believe everyone should. This photo is from yesterday. Burrrr.

Latest Obsession

While my obsession with boats continues, especially those one can conceivably live upon, I now am also interested in the Chris Craft's land loving cousins, the vintage travel trailers. I also have a deep and abiding love of treehouses, outbuildings and the like. I think I may be channeling Virginia Wolfe's desire for a room of one's own.

The challenge I face in this life is combining my latest obsession(s), hobby, interest, distraction with something practical. Since I about to be "Home Free" (- - sounds better than homeless- don't you think?) I need a place to store all of my tools. Storage is expensive, garages are not commonplace in the older neighborhoods, so I started to look into a utility trailer. Also expensive. It was there that I stumbled upon the idea of finding an old used travel trailer- a camper, a van as they say on the other side o' the pond.

Now nothing makes one want something more than it's complete unavailability or competition for said thing.. I am most attracted to married people with a child on the way about to move to South Africa for instance. I'd be sure that I have just lost the love of my life. Same goes for stuff. A posting an hour old, already got a zillion responses. I wrote-- "yes, it might be spoken for, but did they offer you limericks?"

Now there are limerick people and there are people who have good taste. Luckily, T and K were limerick people. I figured they might be cause, after all, they had a trailer.

I wrote the woman who made the post, who talked to her, "friend" and got back the following:

I just showed this to the owner....she likes to write limericks. She laughed and said .. "Ask her to write a limerick for each of the four seasons and I'll take $25.00 off the selling price."

So, at 11:23 at night, I wrote:

Winter:

Burrrrh! we are chilled to the bone
The crocuses have yet to bemoan
The soil it is frozen
it was I who was chosen
in this yard I must find sandy loam

Spring
In the Spring I am asked to create
An Eden! or something ornate
Their desire is real
In Spring with such Zeal
I'll do it- - cause they are sedate

Summer:
There once was a snail named King Lear
In his shell he had nothing to fear
He ate and he ate
the sweet herbs --he'd eviscerate
all was well
'til he fell
In the Beer

Fall:
In a trailer this fall I'll contemplate
My navel, your garden, my fate
Funky must do
for I cannot pay for new
My friends in Oly* will capitulate

*Oly- Olympia


My friend Mara said, "While they are not funny, I find myself laughing anyway. "
High praise for a limerick.

Here is a Photo:













Naming Contest will commence soon.

Now, you may be looking at trailer trash - trash. (note cat door and steps)

I am seeing:











And why don't we wear ties when camping?

Or I am envisioning:

Two Kinds of People

“We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately."

-Benjamin Franklin

I tend toward viewing the universe and its morals, standards, rules, inhabitants... as a really big spectrum of gray. That is, over the black and white dichotomy that is preferred by some. Having said that, I do believe the worlds just might come down to two kinds of people. Those who like clothslines and those who do not. I am a clothsline liker. I think they a long line of colorful sheets, shirts and undies. The forest service, homeowners associations and really short people are clothsline dislikers.
And the Cloths pins!! don't even get me started about my love of those. Wood. I am a wood clothspin kinda gal. Or Cloths Pegs as they say in the old country.

Stoves

I have high hopes that i can buy this houseboat that I want so badly that I could just spit. It is even named Blue Heron.
Anyway, I have been obsessing about it and wondering how I am going to manage it, but instead of thinking about making any practical plans toward the goal, I think about how to decorate 663 square feet. It doesn't sound that big, probably cause it isn't. Smaller than my house in the peace corps. I'd attach a photo but I don't have one handy. I was looking at another houseboat for sale that is a mere 6 times more expensive on accounta it coming with moorage in seattle near my old house. It had a neat old stove. But not as neat as this one, which I love.



And who woudn't. It would be like not loving these boat ads. A restored stove like this to my right would set you back 6k. Ouch. It makes me wonder about our current stove at our cabin. I would like designs like these in cars, appliances, phones, etc. today. There is a company making cool TV's, but I am not going to invest actual money into a TV no matter how cool.

New Shoes

I stumbled upon the song that will play if you click on the snappy shoe picture recently and thought that this was a man who really understood women. Those who helped me move me and my shoe collection - Thank You Janine in particular- will understand.

My Move

Since I have moved to Canada over the week, I have the opportunity to learn some of the official languages.

Official languages	Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey, Tłįchǫ [1]

Go ahead. Try and pronounce the last one. Good luck with that.

So...after taking about about 6 truck loads to the Good Will, the death, blind, MS stricken truck drivers failing to pick up my numerous requests. Given their disabilities, I understand. Anyway, we also took several loads to the Re-Store. Leaving was not fun. It is going to be hard to be in the neighborhood and be pulled to my what is now known as "My Ancestral Home."

Charlie ate my Pansies

Physics

The physical laws apply to energy, mass, butter and invites. For every invite there is an equal and opposite Un-invite. Kinda like the butter and Charlie. I was invited and the uninvited.

I told my friend Sage I was uninvited and shed said, grinning, "you can do that????..." I told her, no, She couldn't do that as I was having thanksgiving at her house instead.

I was invited to thanksgiving at A and J's

Charlie threw up a pound of butter

Charlie ate a pound of butter.

A Star Is Born

Me and my good friend Sec. of state Sam Reid, the only republican I have ever voted for in my life, were the midwives to the birthing of a brand new individual, Christened in a Unitarian sort of way, Shooting Star Gardens, llc

So please join me in welcoming to the world, Shooting Star Gardens, llc and wish him/her many years of growth and happiness.

Northwest Native Plant Study Set

This is a set of 167 photos from various public web sources, including King County DNR, USDA and WNPS. They are not inclusive of the Plant List yet, and there are duplicate plants such ass flowering, or in seed, or fruit, etc.
These photos are to be used for study purposes only, and may not be reproduced.

Suggestions for use

If you click on the Abies to your right, (go ahead, try it...) you will (hopefully) be directed to my Flickr photo sharing site where there should be a set called NW Native Plant Set. You may then run them as a slide show to test your knowledge or you can view them with the tags that have their botanical names - - mostly - - It is a work in progress. I want to set up just the 50 or so plants we need, but haven't done that yet. You can though. :)

Flintstones or Mitochondrial DNR???

Moon Setting

Last night I woke up at two and considered staying up, as it was such a stunningly beautiful moon setting in the west and, after all, I went to bed at 8pm. I decided against it and went back to sleep. Imagine a nearly full moon, with just a tad shaved off the bottom left side. The night was clear and there is a faint line of a single cloud above it. It was the color of a creamsicle. I am thinking perhaps I cannot do it justice with the creamsicle comparison. I suppose it depends on how you feel about creamsicles. If you take the image of a creamsicle, and the image of the moon, you might be able to mix them together in your mind and get an idea of what I was looin' at. Or you might just want to set your alarm for some time around 2 am and look out the window tonight. Creamsicle, now there is one of those words that kinda stops having meaning the more you say or read it. Creamsicle. It's the sicle part, I think.

The Gospel According to Fred Flintstones

I got up early this morning, having been struggling with a bad back. I am getting so much conflicting advise - - exercise, rest, ice, heat, heat and ice, take drugs, go to a chiropractor - - DON"T go to a chiropractor. t is all so confusing. Well, at least one thing in my life has been cleared up. Today is the grand opening of the Creation Museum. I know understand life to have been created in 6 days about 6 thousand years ago. Ya see, if you 't believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis and go from there as your base supposition, than it is totally clear that dinosaurs and white babies were running around the planet together. The problem with modern evolutionary biologists and every other scientists on the planet, they go from something called evidence based blah blah blah.... Apparently, instead of starting from the story of Genesis's creation story, they rely on their Satan inspired math and physics paradigm.

I am, however, curious about which creation story in Genesis is being used, as there are two and there are conflicts within each story. I am sure they have been told by God which one to use.

Bad Guy

I was meeting a friend for dinner in the I.D. (that is P.C for Chinatown) and was talking to my brother when I parked my pickup that has a cap on it. Anyway, I noticed a fellow behind, and I mean RIGHT behind, the truck, going through something. I mentioned this to Jon and said I wanted him to go away and also wondered if he knew I was in the truck or not. To alert him of my presence and my desire for him to move along, I honked my horn, which was kinda not too impressive as it is a Mazda. It it went, "beep." Jon heard it. He can attest to its lack of umph. It most definitely Not the big, "Get the Hell-Out-of-Here-Honk that I was going for.
But alas, he walked around the front of the truck and shoved a bunch of cash in his pocket. About the same time came several police cars. I hung up rather abruptly on Jon and got out of the truck to find an unfamiliar backpack behind my truck. I went up to an out of breath police lady and said I thought the person they might be looking for, "Went Thata Way." She told me that they caught him and if I would mind, please stay to make a statement. I did and talked to a short little fellow about the bad guy and how I stayed in my tuck and watched as he rifled through, what I now know, not to be his backpack. He looked just like the bad guy in the picture I have included except he wore his hair reallllly short, had a beard, was brown, no hat and no machine gun.

62 days

Minus 41 hours so far. So lets say, roughly, 60 days since my life went upside down.

Not-Jail and Certified

For the last 9 weeks or so, I have been occasionally grateful that I hadn't gotten arrested that day. Well, I got word yesterday that no one intentions on arresting me. Now, how nifty is that??? Not only that, but I have been examined, analyzed and can prove that beyond reasonable doubt that I am not, in fact, a monster.

Schmultzy, but timely

To Hold

Before I left for camp, my mother sewed my name
with a firm stitch into everything I owned.
She even looped a string of nametapes
through the scissors I keep to this day on my desk.

She wanted to be sure, when she sent me into the woods,
she'd get the right child back at summer's end,
that I'd not be left in the laundry drum
like an unmarked sock. Others—

careless lazy mothers-favored marking pens,
illegible black letters bleeding into stain.

My mother knew nothing was permanent.
She'd seen how fast a child could disappear:
her two dead sisters with names like flowers:
Lily, Rose, their summery smells, indelible voices.

That's why she sewed my name so tight
on all four sides, double-knotted the knots.
So I wouldn't forget when she sent me off
into the wet, the dark, the wild: I was hers.
Jean Nordhaus

Quote o' the day

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

If ya dig a hole....

If you dig a whole in the back yard of 4400 Lockwood way, Sacramento CA, you in fact do NOT get to China but end up approximately 1000 miles South East of Madagascar in the middle of the Indian Ocean.